I don't want to be vulnerable

On being a soft rock .. on vulnerability 

I have always attributed my dysfunctional relationship with my own feelings to my upbringing, 

I grew up in a middle class, Middle Eastern, middle religious family. The baggage came with a long list of social burdens, obligations and duties towards the community, the religion , "the others" but not a lot in the department of recognising your own personal needs. 

My family provided for us, financially they did their best. Emotionally, they were not fully there.
They gave us the love that they been given. and that was all what they knew. 

And I learnt at a very young age that the masks you wear outside falls easily behind closed doors. 

Expectations Expectations Expectations 

Achievements Achievements Achievements

being a social role model, a local icon one can say, someone to look up to they say.
Excelling at academia, learning English on my own, getting funded to study medicine abroad,
A reason for my parents to be proud they say.  

In the midst of all of that I failed to recognise my own feelings and putting them out there. I was always wearing the mask.
Proud and tall stood the mask and the show kept going on.

Until those feelings built up inside, they grew and grew until they have no more space to expand and they burst and crumbled and fell apart and brought me down with them.

And when my heart spilled away. The shame came. 

"I don't want to be vulnerable " repeated the voice in my head, I don't wanna fall. 

I have a morbid fear of being weak, as if it is an obligation for me to be a rock for others but not to expect anyone else to be there for me. 

I am my own rock .. and the rock refuses to be soft 

You see I never had a figure in my life that taught me it is okay to step back, take a break and breathe for a while. 

It was just a full time job to fill all the roles and expectations of the society and to do it with a shining bright smile. 

There was no time for the misery and unhappiness to creep in. 

Yet when it did, it took more than I could ever offer 

And I feel paralysed, incapable of allowing others to help, incapable of receiving love, incapable of asking for second chances, if I couldn't do it from the first time, if I don't get it from the first try. I must be unworthy. 

So I stand up again, dust my weakened shoulders and polish my mask and put it on. 

"I don't want to be vulnerable " repeats the voice in my head.